MINERVA - Honors College - University of Maine

Charlie Slavin, Director
MINERVA
Editors
Jonathan Beever
Sarah Paul
Charlie Slavin
Contributing Writers
Sarah Paul
Emily Cain
Barbara Ouellette
Sarah Penley
Isaac Record
Moira Reilly
Jonathan Beever
Designers
Valerie Williams
The Honors College Staff
Printing
The J.S. McCarthy Company
Readers are invited to send comments to:
minerva.letters@umit.maine.edu
MINERVA is produced annually by the
students and staff of The Honors College
at The University of Maine, Thomson
Honors Center, Colvin Hall, Orono, Maine
04469-516, 207.581.3263. Design work and
printing of MINERVA are underwritten
through gifts to The Honors College. In
particular, we would like to thank Renee
and Len Minsky for their continuing
generosity.
© 2004
front cover: Colvin Hall in the summer
back cover: Gathering at the Washington Monument
A member of the
University of Maine System
2 The Honors College
F R O M T H E D I R E C T O R
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Annus Mirabilis
For the past six years, I have been fortunate
in a number of ways. I have interacted
with many incredible students and many
dedicated faculty members while directing
the University of Maine’s Honors Program
and, as of 1 August 2002, The Honors College
at The University of Maine. In addition to
teaching, I have also had the opportunity
to present several lectures each year in the
Honors 201-202 sequence, The Sciences and
Western Culture.
Two talks I presented several times were
based upon the readings in the Newton and
Einstein “weeks” of Honors 201 and 202,
respectively. Both Isaac Newton and Albert
Einstein are often described as having a socalled
"annus mirabilis” or “miracle year"
(you now know at least 50% of my Latin
vocabulary). For Newton, the year was 1666
(or alternatively, the anni mirabili of 1665-67,
though, in fact, probably neither ascription
is entirely accurate), when he is said to have developed both the differential and integral calculus,
created his theory of light and color, and provided a physical explanation based on universal gravitation
for Kepler’s Laws of planetary motion. In Einstein’s case, in 1905, he indeed did publish three
extraordinary papers, on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect, and special relativity. Thus,
Newton and Einstein each, in an annus mirabilis, provided the impetus to revolutionize the entirety
of the physical understanding of our universe.
A common element in my theses for both of these talks was that the paradigm-shattering work
was done, or at least crystallized, outside of the contemporary academic setting. Newton was sent
home when Cambridge University was closed on several occasions because of the plague. From
1902 through 1908 Einstein was employed at the Swiss Patent Office. I argued that a certain distance
from the “received view” was necessary to allow for the expression of the genius we now see in each
annus mirabilis.
The analogy is not exact, but I think of this past academic year, 2002-03 as an annus mirabilis for
Honors at The University of Maine. As you will read in the pages that follow, the nature of Honors
significantly changed during this year; that change encompassed structural modifications, curriculum
innovations, and enhanced academic and cultural opportunities. Truly, it has been a revolutionary
time. And while not outside the academic milieu, I like to think that The Honors College
provides opportunities for students and faculty to explore innovative and non-traditional approaches
to education, ideas that often find their way into other academic settings across campus.
We are off to a tremendous start, and we are equally excited about the future. I hope we can share
some of that enthusiasm with you in this first issue of Minerva, the annual publication highlighting
the graduates and news of The Honors College at The University of Maine.
Charlie Slavin, Director